Jesus Lied - He Was Only Human: Debunking the New Testament (11 page)

Without doubt, this should be the shortest chapter in this book as Luke is the only Gospel to make any mention of Jesus between his ages two to thirty-three. I find the following to be a mind shattering observation; God, according to Christian belief, gave birth to a human son, and not a single writer of that period, of which there were hundreds of historians floating about Jerusalem at that time, thought it relevant to write about his childhood, his teenage years, or most of his adulthood. Thus we have no bloody idea what trials or tribulations or dead hookers and uncut Columbian cocaine Jesus went through to become the arrogant self-righteous preacher we all know and love.

Was he a pimply awkward adolescent that refused to do his chores? Was he bad at sports? Did chicks dig him? Did he play ‘spin-the-bottle’ with the other teenagers in his village? Did he experiment with mushrooms and peyote? We know none of any of this and the only story we do have of the missing years [from the bible, there is some text in the Gnostic texts and in the Infancy Gospels of Thomas] of Jesus is the one Luke tells of Jesus as a twelve year old. Luke writes that every year Joseph and Mary would travel from Nazareth to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. This is a pretty normal family outing for a Jewish holiday it would seem, but this story takes a fast turn for nonsense when he writes:

How drunk or stoned would Joseph and Mary have had to have been to mistakenly believe that Jesus was right there with them (or perhaps he was there in spirit), when he clearly wasn’t? And if they weren’t at all intoxicated, as would have been the custom whilst ‘on the road’, then did they just simply not give a shit? Naturally, you would presume that if Mary believed herself to be raising God’s little Buddha, she’d be an extremely over-protective parent. My parents were over-protective raising me, for example, and I can assure you that they did not believe me to be a saint or much less godly. Thankfully, there was no Department of Child Welfare back then, or this set of parents would be without a child.

The story continues that his irresponsible guardians return to Jerusalem to find him. At the end of the third day of looking for him (Mary searched the markets and Temples. Joseph thought it would be best if he checked the whore houses…alone), they found the adolescent Jesus preaching to several gathered Jews at the Temple.

The young Jesus’ wisdom astonished those who listened, and the priests were said to have been amazed that a youth would have such insight and wisdom. Again, if this guy was at all a child prodigy then why didn’t anyone take down any notes? For later reference, the fact that Luke writes Jesus was found on the third day is no accident.

Joseph and Mary, upon finding him at the Temple, yell to him (as all parents do when their kid disappears):

If Jesus had any spunk at all, his reply should have been, “Where was I? I am only twelve years of age, you are my goddamn father and it was you that bloody well left me here, father of the fucking year!”

It’s interesting that Luke writes that “his father”, Joseph, had been looking for him? Why would Luke write that if he meant what he said, earlier in his Gospel, that Jesus was the Son of God? Is this a telling slip of the pen or concentration as he copied other sections of Mark’s Gospel that refers to Jesus as the son of Joseph? Nevertheless, Jesus replies to his now concerned parents, who didn’t seem all that concerned for his absence for at least the day or two when they thought he was still in the backseat of the car playing with his Gameboy (which is the ancient Hebrew term for ‘penis’):

The punch line of Luke’s story is one that always elicits a quiet giggle from me:

Which means, all sarcasm aside, that his parents believed he was a babbling lunatic… he was probably speaking in tongues, Evangelical Christian style!

Anyway, that’s all we have on Jesus as a child. Not a single narrative of the mystical man from this age until he abruptly reenters the scene in his early 30’s. Eighteen years of complete silence. His formative years are unknown. Did people stop paying attention to him? Was he unworthy of notoriety as a teenager? Had he not yet harnessed his magical powers, leading him in need of rescue from the Dead Sea lifeguards whenever he attempted to make an aqua crossing

Some eccentrics hold the view that Jesus spent his ‘missing years’ wandering throughout India and Tibet learning their form of mysticism and primitive medicine. Obviously, this is nothing more than conjecture as there is absolutely no evidence to substantiate such a claim. A Christian Evangelical group even swayed Universal Studios to part with some cold hard cash to film a documentary in search of Jesus’ footsteps in Tibet, but they came back with nothing to show for their determined (misguided) efforts.

Another more fanciful theory claims Jesus visited the UK, then known as Albion or Britannia, with his father Joseph. Legend has it that together they sailed up what is now Glastonbury in the south west of the England. Whilst again, there is absolutely zero evidence to support such a trip took place, it does get some Christian happy clappers excited because there are some historical possibilities (*cough* bullshit) to hang their hat on. That being that there was a significant amount of trade done between Britannia and Judea as both were colonies of the Roman Empire, but that’s about the extent to the historical plausibility. Hardly a smoking gun, but probably enough for a Dan Brown enthusiast to get all hot and bothered… yeah, I went there!

The Gospel According to Thomas
, commonly shortened to the
Gospel of Thomas
, is a well-preserved manuscript discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945, in one of a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. This library contained hundreds of copies of the Hebraic Old Testament (Torah) and many other significant records from the ancient tribes.

The Gospel of Thomas
is very different in tone and structure from the four Canonical Gospels. Unlike the canonical Gospels, it is not a narrative account of the life of Jesus; instead, it consists of sayings attributed to Jesus, sometimes stand-alone, sometimes embedded in short dialogues or parables.

This gospel was one of those omitted by the Council of Nicea in AD 322, and you will soon discover why. The writings of Thomas provide us with a description of Jesus aged five to seven years of age. Reading this gospel conjures images from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, “He’s not the messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy!” Thomas certainly leaves us with such an impression.

There is a bunch of narratives that present the Child Messiah as a mischievous, petulant, disobedient little shit who used his magical powers to circumvent natural laws ad hoc, and for his own personal gain. We will never know for certain the reasons why the Nicea Council elected to omit this gospel, as it would have complimented Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John’s respective lack of childhood biography, but we can presume it because Thomas is forthright in asserting that Joseph was the father of Jesus.

The opening of Thomas begins:

Chapters 1-2:
Thomas’ opening story is of Jesus aged five. We read the toddler playing on the banks of a small stream, using his apparent wizardry; he diverted the running water into a number of different pools using his mind. Oooh, amazing! But this is just an entrée of more delicious things to come. Next thing, an old man notices the toddler in the shallows “playing upon the Sabbath”, and runs to report Jesus’ illegal activity to his father:

Joseph, alarmed, runs to where his son is playing and cried,
“Wherefore doest thou these things on the Sabbath, which it is not lawful to do?”
His five-year-old son does not utter a single word in reply to Joseph, and instead clapped his hands together and cried out to the clay model sparrows to become alive. And alive they became, before singing a song and then taking flight. Joseph and the old man were amazed, and ran to the town’s chief to inform what this young prodigy had just accomplished.

Wow! Let’s take a moment to think about this. Jesus brought to life birds made from mud. Now, where have I heard this before? Let me think…

That’s right, God made the birds from clay on day 5 of creating the universe. It appears Thomas could read, as he had read the Old Testament well.

Chapter 3:
Not everyone was impressed by the young lad’s mystical achievement. In fact, the son of Annas The Scribe took particular umbrage to the young Jewish boy who would dare to play games on the Lord’s Day. Annas Jr. jumped down into the muddy pools, and dispersed the water, which Jesus had gathered together. Most five year olds would be glad for this lenient punishment considering a stoning was warranted under Mosaic Law, but little Jesus couldn’t keep his mouth shut, and replied angrily:

Now, that certainly warrants a stoning. Moses would be so pissed right now! But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He casts a spell on the man’s son:

Immediately the young boy began to whither up into an old man before their very eyes. Annas Junior, fell the ground and wailed,
“How could a child do such a terrible deed?”
… well duh, Annas, what else is the son of a genocidal, infanticidal, megalomaniacal, malevolent dictator who wants to see all non-Jews burn in hell for all eternity going to do? Call a tickle fight?

Chapter 4:
Shortly after turning a fellow young man from his village into an old man, Jesus was running through the streets of his village, when a random child accidently ran into Jesus, bumping his shoulder. Jesus turned towards the unobservant youth and shouted:

With that curse, the young boy fell to the ground and died.

Jesus has now murdered two children by age 5, just in case you wanted to keep a body count. Aww, he’s so cute, growing up to be just like his sky-daddy! The bereaved parents of the deceased arrived on Joseph’s doorstep, with their dead son in their arms, and cried,
“Your son can no longer live in this village if you can’t teach him how to bless rather than curse, for he is killing kids.”

Chapter 5:
Joseph was irate with his murderous son, grabbing the young Jesus by the ear, and shouted,
“Who does such a terrible thing, that would bring hate upon this family?”
Jesus replied, somewhat sheepishly,
“I know you don’t understand, but nevertheless for the sake of keeping the peace I will refrain from similar actions in the future. But just know that those two kids had it coming to them.”

The irate Joseph grabbed his son and threw him aside, to which Jesus responded venomously,
“Your actions towards me are unwise. You don’t know who I am.”
To which Joseph replies,
“but I know who you are, you’re a little thug. Is what you are, buddy?”

Chapter 6:
A teacher by the name Zacchaeus, marveled at how the boy Jesus spoke to his father. Not marvel as in ‘your son needs a spanking’ kind of way, but more in a ‘your son is so wise for his age’ kind of way. These people had to have been fricking high!

This Zaccaeus fellow asks Joseph if he may teach his son the alphabet,
“Your son is very wise, and he has great understanding. I will teach him all the letters and impart further knowledge upon him.”

The teacher began with the letter A (alpha), and that’s as far as the first lesson got, before Jesus shouted at Zacchaeus,
“Why are you going to teach me the letter B (beta), next, when you don’t even understand what A means. You are a stupid hypocrite.”
There’s no letting up with this kid! The teacher was amazed and horrified at the same time.

Chapter 7:
Zacchaeus returned the petulant and obnoxious child to his father Joseph with a note that read,
“Take him away my brother Joseph. I cannot endure the severity of his look. He ridicules everything that I have to say. This young child is not of this earth. I cannot follow his understanding. He is either a god or an angel, I cannot determine, but he has made me look foolish.”